Archer River Roadhouse 22nd June

22nd June ARCHER RIVER ROADHOUSE
At about 1 30am I heard one of the road trains start up, it kept running until his air brakes and engine were ready to roll. It made a lot of noise but eventually moved off. Early morning I could hear others starting to fold up their trailers; tents etc and start off again. We weren’t far behind them as we were on the road again just after 8 am. We were aiming to get to our destination at Seisia on the beach just out of Bamaga. It appeared that as we must have left the roadhouse just after another four cars that were travelling together. It made it very hard with all the dust that was kicked up by them all. Something that we hadn’t experienced before. The only benefit for us was that we were able hear them talking to each other over the UHF radio, the lead car warning of dips, (of which there were many) cattle, washouts and floodway’s, where we had to go through water. My, this road was bad and we rattled and shook our fillings out. The corrugation in some places was quite extensive but we just had to keep on going and find the best speed to drive at. Maintaining a steady 80 where there was no sand seemed to be the go but we had to slow down for the dips which if you miscalculated could be quite frightening.
We caught up with the other four cars at Bramwell Junction where we all filled up for the last and worst legs of the trip! We decided to buy an Icy Pole and head straight out so we weren’t following the others and their dust. Here the road was in some cases was quite good, we were taking the Bamaga Road which by passes the Old Telegraph road as we would not be able to go through it as it is only passable by big 4 wheel drives and experienced drivers! We were learning on the job! The Bamaga road (north and south by passes) we were using were built by Telstra so they could manage the communication lines up to the Cape. They were now maintained by the various councils or the Aboriginal council of the Heathlands area we were travelling through. There were no bitumen relief parts on this road, it was all dirt or sand or gravel or red mud! The car and trailer was by now absolutely covered in red dust. Inside the car wasn’t much better, though we did try to keep the windows closed when cars or trucks passed us from the other direction. We continued on to the Jardine Ferry where we had to check to see that we weren’t taking any excess alcohol into the restricted Aboriginal zone. We asked what people did if they had excess amounts with them. He said they usually gave it to him. So Beatrice handed her bottle of Gin over and said we would pick it up on our return! We paid our $99 return to cover the ferry (about 100 mtrs across) and the entry into the area. This mighty Jardine River flows all year round and is Queensland’s largest perennial river. The continual flow of water is largely due to the constant high annual rain fall (over 1500 mm) and the shallow bedrock that lies below the surface.
We were on our last leg of the north bound journey which had so far taken us the best part of two days. We drove into Seisia after travelling on some of the worst gravel roads and checked into the caravan park. No camping under any old tree, we wanted a powered site under a palm tree and some showers etc. We hosed the car and trailer down before we opened it up to try and clean some of the red dirt/dust off and then set up. A gentle breeze, about 30 deg and right on the beach under a couple of palm trees. The water looked so inviting but regrettably the signs warning of the crocodiles in the water kept us and everybody else out of the water! We booked for the trip over to Thursday Island (TI) for Wednesday then sat down and had a beer and chatted to a woman who told us how we could get up to the most Northern part of Australia, the Tip, which we will do tomorrow, and all on dirt roads unfortunately.
We took our chairs and sat on the beach and chatted to Keith who wandered up the beach carrying a few empty water containers. He was looking for water which he was told he could get at the camp. He was sailing his Ketch “Serenity” from Cairns around to Perth and had anchored here for a few days. It was just him and a retired friend helping him.
Very tired we watched the sunset, then enjoyed a steak dinner and a glass of red wine, had our showers and went to bed. We need a few days rest before we had to do it all again!!!!!
No Telstra signal here today or yesterday so this will be seen when hopefully we, the car and trailer our safely back near Cooktown, some 900 odd Kms away and two days of shake rattle and...........hope not!